Composer helps students connect truck sounds and music at Houlton private school

HOULTON, Maine — October 2, 2024 — Composer and musician Bertrand Laurence talks to Carlton Project students during a recent “Finding Your Voice” workshop at the downtown Houlton private school. (Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli | Houlton Pioneer Times)

HOULTON, Maine – An Aroostook composer starts with the physics of sound to awaken verbal and written expression in students at a local alternative private high school.

Bertrand Laurence, who began the weekly “finding your voice” elective sessions at the Carleton Project in Houlton in September, hopes exploring the students’ favorite sounds will help lead to the class composing its own music. 

The varying RPM turns of two-stroke Detroit diesel engines are student Austin Brown’s favorite. With a bit of coaxing, Brown talks about the way the engine purrs, idling nice and smooth and then building and pumping through a truck’s straight pipes. 

The V-8 engine is his favorite, he said.

“That was awesome,” said Laurence, after the group listened to a compilation of two-stroke engines. “Thank you for helping us discover that sound.”

In May, researchers at Johns Hopkins University illustrated the way sound-related learning helps people process information by associating audio with specific behaviors. Laurence’s workshops, designed to develop written expression through sound exploration, tap into the students’ reactions to varying sound vibrations.

The Carleton Project is an alternative high school education program. Students choose to attend the workshop, as an elective, where they interpret the sounds by talking and writing about them. 

Earlier this year, Laurence and two other local artisans designed and built an eclipse guitar for the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. The handcrafted guitar was raffled off during the eclipse with proceeds earmarked for local music education. The raffle did not raise the funds Laurence had hoped for, but he is still teaching the promised classes through his slated 10-weeks at Carleton. 

“It’s wonderful for the kids when someone from the community shares their talent with them,” said Lilly Haggerty, executive director of Carleton.

During a recent session, Laurence talked about the power of sound and how Tibetan monks believe the vibrations affect the physical world in a transformative way. He challenged the students to listen to their inner and outer voices, and from sounds, explore feelings, word meanings and how they view themselves in the world.  

“How do you think about the world? How do you think about your parents? How do you think about yourself?” he asked.

Laurence has students write a word dump of random thoughts related to sound that Haggerty said is an extension of their weekly journals that they write on Fridays for Monday sharing. 

“I see this work as part of building trust in each other and that starts with trusting ourselves and our hearts,” Laurence said. 

In a recent Wednesday session, the students again talked about Brown’s love of the two-stroke Detroit engine and how difficult it is to describe sound. They moved on to dissecting an Andrew Carnegie quote that was on the board.

You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.

“Do you think you become what you think?” Laurence asked.

A near poetic exchange between student and teacher unfolded as they explored each idea in Carnegie’s quote.

During the session, Laurence composed a new song on his guitar and students wrote down random words the music inspired. 

Sharing their creations in an ongoing list of words and phrases – melodic, peaceful, calming, steady, comfort, shallow, flow – they built the beginnings of a song, Laurence said.

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